


down your hollow streets

by Mepriss



Category: Blake Shelton (Musician), The Voice (US) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, F/M, Inspired by Law & Order: SVU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28364760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mepriss/pseuds/Mepriss
Summary: It always starts with a body.
Relationships: Blake Shelton/Gwen Stefani
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16





	down your hollow streets

**Author's Note:**

> Any SVU lovers out there? Anyone who doesn't ship Elliot and Olivia? 
> 
> Honestly, this came from my love of them and the show. I wanted to see if I could write Gwen and Blake in these roles without losing sight of their own personalities. Let me know if I succeeded? 
> 
> Also, I plan on posting the next part if you guys like this first piece? It can stand alone but I have more of their story, where they don't just stay partners and eventually get together, like I hope and pray Olivia and Elliot will someday.
> 
> You'll see that there's some songs playing in each scene. These songs helped me write each scene, and really set the mood as I reread each section back. I encourage you to listen to them while you read. I know it might be tedious but it's actually a lot of fun! Also, the dates and timeline of events are really important for the story, but I know the songs aren't exactly tailored to that specific time. Shh. We'll pretend like they came out that year instead of differently for storytelling purposes. ;) 
> 
> If you take a chance and read this thing in its entirety, drop a comment below and let me know what you thought and if you want to see more.
> 
> Thank you a million, and much love Shefani fam -M

**_Crime Scene_ **

**_Central Park, New York, NY_ **

**_Sunday, November 20, 2001_ **

**_11:26 a.m._ **

**_Stereo Radio Nearby: Final Lullaby -- The Weeknd_ ** __

It always starts with a body. 

Gwen thinks easily about the size and the shape, the age and the height, the color and the lack of heat underneath the skin. But what she can’t unsee is the death and how it looks a lot like sleep. 

It doesn’t matter if the body is strung up against a grey backdrop somewhere or if it's lying down horizontally in a field of grass. It doesn’t matter if they find it behind some trees and bushes, a park bench, or even underneath a lamplight. It doesn’t matter if the body is covered in blood, bruises, bite marks, or cuts. It doesn’t matter if the body is clothed or not, if it's been suddenly found by bugs or birds. There is something strangely familiar to a moment’s slumber when she sees a dead body. She doesn’t think of peace. She physically can’t, because no victim can truly be at rest in the aftermath of their brutal and untimely death, but she does think of the complete silence that follows after. 

It's a quiet thing. The way she looks at them, the way they just lie there, unmoving, unburdened by the labors of breath, the labors of life, silenced forever. Sleep can be a haunting thing, and there’s nothing more haunting than closing your eyes and never opening them again. 

She looks at the young, relaxed face before her, at the way the eyelids have been turned a dark purple. The body is cold. The temperature is below freezing. There’s snow on the ground, snow on the victim, and snow on her boots. She feels the white flakes crunch underneath her double-socked toes and wonders when this body went to sleep forever. Time of death is hard to determine when the world is like this, when the environment is frosty and unforgiving, when the temperature is at one extreme opposed to another.

California had never been this cold.

It’s moments like these that she misses home. She misses her mother and her father and the suffocating heat of the west coast.

She should call them back today. Tonight, she settles on. They want to know how she’s doing. Four months in and her parents still aren’t convinced that she’s happy with the transfer, with the change in pace, with the precinct she now calls home. They worry about her. It’s understandable. They’ve been worried about her ever since she switched her major from fashion innovation to criminal justice. They worried when she passed every class with high marks, when she went into the academy after graduation, when she was promoted to detective in homicide. They worried and held their breath when she told them there was a spot in the Special Victims Unit all the way in New York. 

They worried but she never once hesitated in her career. New York is cold, yes. It’s too fast and loud and crowded and everything she thought she hated about the city. But it’s brought her to the point she’s always wanted to be ever since she came home from the hospital all those years ago.

So she lets them worry because she can’t make them do anything else. This is what she wants. Nevermind that it looks wholly out of character for her, to just pack up and leave, to pursue a career that will only lead her down dark alleys and seedy nightclubs. It’s what she wants. She can be the girl from Anaheim that everyone loves, the girl that smiles and shakes the ground as she laughs, the girl that loves music and art and fashion, the girl that’s soft and gentle with a heart of gold. She is that girl. But she’s also the woman who craves excitement, who needs to do everything with purpose, who needs to be needed, and therefore, useful. She’s the woman who has to be strong for others, who has to frown sometimes because there’s nothing to smile about, not when a young boy has been raped and beaten and left for dead in a park behind a patch of grass. She’s that sweet girl with a heart of gold but she’s also a woman with thick skin and a hard exterior to wrap around all that soft muscle and tissue.

She likes warm places but if need be, she’ll stick it out in the cold, too. 

Gwen closes her eyes against a harsh gust of wind. She sees the image of the victim behind them when she does, and just for a moment, she pretends the body of this young child really is sleeping. She pretends the music playing from a couple’s radio sitting on a nearby bench had lulled the boy into a deep slumber, and when they eventually left, annoyed with the uniforms and police dogs that had interrupted their morning walk in the park next to the Hudson, he would wake up finally, stare into her eyes, and let her know that he’s okay, that the world hadn’t broken him like it’s done so many before. 

“They found a bookbag and a pair of broken glasses on the other side of the path. Think they belong to the vic.” 

She doesn’t need to open her eyes to see her partner. His voice alone conjures up the hard and tall images of him. 

_ Shelton.  _

_ Blake. _

He’s next to her, instantly. 

His sunglasses hang from his jacket pocket; his white dress shirt is clean and crisp. She opens her eyes. Despite the frigid temp, the sun is out, bathing him in a soft light as he stands over the boy’s body with her, shivering. 

They got the call only a half hour ago. He was at church with the wife and kids. He’s freshly showered and groomed. When the wind knocks into her again, she can smell the masculine scent of his cologne. Strong and sweet, spicy and earthly. She closes her eyes once more.

In her mind, Gwen focuses on the NYPD badge clipped to his hip instead of around the strong column of his neck. It’s just like him. From the moment she first laid eyes on him in the squadroom, open collar, blue jeans, cowboy boots, black blazer, she knew he wasn’t a typical New Yorker. When he opened his mouth, she heard the distinct southern accent. From the way he leaned over his desk when filling out paperwork, to the way he made his coffee, Gwen knew he was just a younger version of her father. Proud, respected, well-liked, immediately intimidating and therefore, well-hated, but above all, strong--stronger than most. 

It’s the reason he never wears necklaces or ties. He never likes anything around his throat, never wants to be that vulnerable. She understands because she was raised for the most part by a man just like her new partner. Strong, willing, and capable. Too smart for their own good. Because it’s one thing for the powers above and to be to choke the life out of you day in and day out, but it’s another to allow their creations to get a chance at doing the same thing. It’s a risk Blake’s not willing to take, the same way she won’t risk wearing a dress anymore--wearing a dress ever. And even despite all the teaching, how it’s not your fault, and what you wear shouldn’t be the reason for your demise, Gwen still believes that it’s the making of access easier for the perp, and she can’t do that without swallowing a mouthful of ash.

“Private school?” She asks because she feels like she has to, even though she knows already, even despite the lack of I.D. on the victim. The boy is wearing expensive clothes, new khakis, silk button-down, and italian leather dress shoes. He looks like someone might care about him if he never came home. He looks like important money, and she knows the boy’s family has to be wealthy and now heartbroken. She asks Blake when she already knows because sometimes, she just likes to hear him agree with her. It’s too often that they don’t. It’s only been three months. They’re still trying to figure each other out.

She opens her eyes finally to see him nodding. His hands are on his hips, low enough to be lazy but not enough to seem uninterested. He’s invested. Angry, even. Always is as he stares down at a dead body, a  _ broken  _ body, a body that belongs to a child. He’s invested, from the way he rolls his neck, hunches his shoulders just that little bit as if settling the weight of the world on his shoulders, all while refraining from biting his bottom lip until it cracks and bleeds and bruises, resembling most of their victims. 

He looks tired. Gwen can see the bags underneath his baby blue eyes and wonders if he’s sleeping at home.

It’s none of her business. 

“Why don’t you head back to Kaynette and the kids? I’ll start up the paperwork and you can join me whenever mass is over.”

She should be at church. Her parents would be on the other side of the country, along with her siblings and their kids. She should be sitting in a pew right now, staring up at Jesus Christ instead of muttering the man’s name underneath her cold breath as she wills the body on the ground to open its eyes. 

_ Wake up. Wake up. You’re so young. You haven’t lived enough life yet. So fucking wake up.  _

“You sure?” 

She nods, stuffing her hands back in her coat jacket. 

“I’ll be back by noon.” He breathes. 

_ No, you won’t. _

It may only be three months since she’s known this man but it’s long enough for her to know that he’s a father, and therefore, almost never on time. 

She nods again, head suddenly feeling way too heavy for her own body. The sound of his boots crunching in the snow again tell her that he’s left. He’s making his way back to Christ and God while she descends right into the gates of hell. It always feels like they’re dancing with the devil when they work a case _. _

She should be at church right now. It’s all she can think about as she makes her way back to the car. She should be at church, cleansing herself from the images that rot inside of her mind. But she can’t feel sorry for herself, because he has it worse than her. 

He’s the one that has to leave a crime scene every time and go back to his family seemingly unaffected. He’s the one that has to replace the images of a dead, young boy, a young boy that is only a few years older than his own son, with images of something far less evil, far less terrifying. 

Maybe that’s why she let him go. Because one of them had to wash themselves clean from the horrors of their work, and if it couldn’t be her, then it sure as hell had to be him.

**_16th Precinct_ **

**_204 West 119th Street, Manhattan, NY_ **

**_Tuesday, November 22, 2001_ **

**_11:48 p.m._ **

**_Gwen’s Desk Radio: Fallen -- Gert Taberner_ **

He’s been staring at her since the song started. 

It’s a quiet one, fitting for another quiet and late night at the precinct. The squadroom is empty save for them. The lights turned off an hour ago. The two of them are bathed only in lamplight, and he has half a mind to switch his desk light off as the pounding in his head increases. He thought it would subside after the five tylenol he popped twenty minutes ago. But it hadn’t, and so he’s still there, wincing every five seconds and staring at his partner. 

There’s been no new leads in the case. Other than them ID’ing the victim and notifying the parents, information on Matthew Henly hadn’t amounted to anything concrete. He came from an affluent family, and went to a prestiges elementary school in upper Manhattan, but he was still a young boy. He didn’t have many friends that he saw outside of school, and was never allowed anywhere without supervision from his parents or the nanny. They don’t even know how he got to be in that park in the first place. He’d been picked up from school by the family’s driver the day before he went missing. That following morning, he never showed up to class, even though he’d been dropped off at school like usual. His disappearance was reported only a day before a runner in Central Park saw him behind an eroded bike path.

Five. Adorable. Innocent. Dead. 

That’s the way it works sometimes and Blake wonders why he gets these bad migraines. Life is so unpredictable and it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Even now, as he stares at Gwen, watching the way her hand glides over the paper she’s writing on, her head bent at an attractive angle, blonde hair falling into her eyes, jaw sharp, expression focused, nothing immediately falls into place, though lyrics are swimming around in his mind, parting the clouds for a clearing. 

_ Tell me things you’ve never said out loud.  _

It’s been three months and she still doesn’t say anything to him about it. It’s been three months and the most they talk about is the weather, the victim, the lunch spot for the day. It’s normal. It’s what every one of his partners before her had offered. But that was because he wanted it that way. He made sure it was that way. He never offered anything and never gave the impression that he wanted them to either.

But she’s different. Blake can’t understand or figure out why, but she just is. Maybe it’s because he knew something so deeply personal about her before this whole thing even started. Maybe it’s her unwillingness to acknowledge that he knows. Or maybe he’s finally realizing that he can’t keep going through partners like they’re a pack of skittles. He wants this one to work. Why? He doesn’t know that, either. He just knows he does. He wants Gwen to stay. It would probably do her some good, seeing as how great she is at her job. 

He’s decided then. She will stay, and he will know the things she’s never said out loud to anyone before, because that’s the only way she ever could. It was easy for the others to walk away, because they had nothing there with him to leave behind. He didn’t know their secrets, and they didn’t have anything to protect except for their futures. He wants her past. Because if he knows things about her that she’d rather keep hidden, then she’d have to stay.

_ Selfish bastard.  _

He is. He knows this. But he’s a selfish bastard that can’t keep a partner, the one thing that’s supposed to always be consistent in his line of work until it isn’t. The Captain can only take so much before it’s  _ him _ that gets the boot this time.

She looks up then, and meets his eyes. They’re tired. She’s tired. But the hues are bright, like pools of honey, and they seem softer in this light. It takes a second for him to realize that they’re smiling. 

_ Show me the parts of you you’re not that proud of. _

It’s a two way street for what he wants. For her to stay, for him to have some stability where he needs it the most. He has a family. He has something to go home to everyday. But when he comes to work, he doesn’t know who’s going to be sitting at the desk across from him and for how long. It eats at a detective after a while.

So down one street, she’ll tell him the things she’s never said out loud. 

Down another, he’ll show her the parts that he’s not all that proud of. 

Should be easy. 

Just like falling.

The only hard part is hitting the ground.

**_Residence of Donald Latimer_ **

**_11 East 83rd Street, New York, NY_ **

**_Friday, November 25, 2001_ **

**_1:27 a.m._ **

**_Car Radio: Walls -- Kings of Leon_ **

They get a lead.

It brings them to the Upper West Side where Gwen lives just two blocks away but it doesn’t unsettle her. There’s a sex offender living in her apartment building, another one across the street in the newly built studio flats. There’s probably a few more predators living in her twenty mile radius but there’s nothing she can do about that. But there is something she can do about Donald Latimer: their prime suspect in the Henly case. 

If he’s guilty, they’ll catch him, imprison him, and she’ll breathe a little better at night knowing they’ve got another one. In the morning, she’ll wake up, take a hot shower, and remember that there are millions of predators out there in the world just like Latimer, and she’ll never catch them all. 

They’ve been on this stakeout for over two hours now, her and Shelton. They’re waiting, watching, anticipating the beginning of a nightmare to unravel before their dark and very tired eyes, for Donald to repeat a horrible offense that Gwen can’t even fathom, and one that Blake can’t even begin to stomach. 

The case is hitting home for him. It started off with a little boy, a boy he still sees when he closes his eyes at night, she’s sure. A boy that reminds him so much of his son. And now there’s more out there. More kids, more children to remind him of the little ones he has at home. More to remind him of how Matthew Henly is just one of many kids involuntarily involved in an online pedophilia circle.

It eats at him, she can tell, but that’s another thing she can’t do anything about. She thinks about asking him anyways, bringing up his family, his kids, but they don’t do that. She always gets the feeling that he’d rather her not, and so she doesn’t. But then he surprises her sometimes.

Like now. 

He’s in the driver’s seat, trying and failing to get comfortable. The car is warm but outside, it’s a freeze fest, and Gwen’s suddenly happy that she’s not completely in it. Blake is sipping at his two dollar hot cocoa, which he’d complained about earlier when she got it for him. He wasn’t thrilled that the only close beverage stand near them and open at eleven at night was stationed by the ice rink a couple blocks back. He offered to go but she knew he was just as much as a freeze baby, if not more, than her. And besides, her legs were beginning to feel cramped in the small squad car. The walk did her some good, and when she returned with piping hot cocoa, one with extra whip cream for Blake, because he’s like a child when it comes to sugar, her partner had slightly brightened in the few seconds before he actually put the rim of the paper cup to his lips and effectively burned his tongue. From there it had been curses and grunts and then he was back to his grumpy mood. Gwen simply refrained from laughing and went with a modest smile for the past hour and a half. 

A smile that was quickly wiped from her face as Blake asked, “How do ya destroy a monster without becomin’ one?”

His drawl is quiet. Almost  _ needy.  _ Almost as if he really doesn’t have all the answers and this one, this one he thinks she might have. It feels almost like an audition, like if she gets this right, if she knows this one answer, and shares it willingly, then she’ll get to stay. Like he’ll give her a chance. She knows his track record with past partners; Daly warned her about him before she transferred. But just as it had felt like a try-out for the past three months, in that moment, all it felt like was a handout. She feels like he’s trying here. He’s trying to give her more than a casual conversation about the weather, or a serious argument about a case. Or maybe he just really doesn’t know, and he trusts that she does, and that’s all there is to it. 

“What made you think about that?” She asks instead, because she doesn’t know the answer and she wants to pretend for a moment that it isn’t suddenly the only thing keeping her by his side.

He puffs out a heavy breath and sets his drink down in the vacant cup holder between them. The whip cream would surely be melted by now and the liquid lukewarm, maybe even cold, but Blake never seems to mind that. He’d probably drink a sweaty beer after it’s been left out in the sun for too long. Come to think of it, he never drinks the coffee she makes him right away in the mornings. He let’s it sit, sometimes for hours, before he even takes his first sip. She thinks it has to do with the extremes in life, and how he never likes to be on either side of one for too long. Blake Shelton doesn’t do hot or cold, he’s warm, all over. He doesn’t do high or low, he meets you in the middle, most of the time. And he definitely doesn’t do innocent or guilty, ‘cause somewhere inside of him recognizes that people are very grey, and black and white is just another limit placed on life, another restraint that he’ll never fall into the clutches of. 

“Sometimes, I uh...I think about guys like Latimer, who do what they do to children and...I go home and I tuck my kids into bed at night and I think about all the kids who have parents, but aren’t children anymore, and kids who have a house, but don’t feel like they’re home, and kids who sleep, but don’t have any dreams, and I--they--” 

Gwen can see the labors of his breath, the pain of his words, and she wants to reach out and grip his hands, squeeze his fingers, because she  _ knows,  _ but she also knows that they don’t do that either. They don’t comfort each other, because they’ve never had to. 

But she has to. Even if his eyes are pointedly on the corner of the street where Latimer’s residence presides, even if they’re nowhere in the car, near her, on her, and wouldn’t be for some time. 

“You think about hurting them, like they hurt those kids.” She voices in the small confines of the car, hearing the way her own speech is pained. 

He nods. It’s a subtle motion, one that anyone would miss if they hadn’t been looking for it. She’s always going to be looking for it. 

“But how can I justify hurtin’ them, even if it feels right, even if a lot of people would agree with me, and not be exactly what they are?” 

She doesn’t have to point out that he could never be a predator, or own the same hands that could cause a child harm, because he’s not talking about that. He’s talking about the root of all human beings. He’s talking about the choice to heal or the choice to hurt. He’s talking about becoming a monster, becoming infatuated and dependent on being the one to make others suffer, no matter how right or good it feels to do so. Innocent or guilty. Blake Shelton is neither, because he believes himself to be both at the same time.

_ Innocent and Guilty. _

_ Very grey.  _

She’s likened him to her father before but staring at him in this dark and cramped car, she realizes that she’s never met a man quite like Blake Shelton before. The thought unsettles her. 

“I think your view of destruction is a little different from mine.” She starts, eyes zeroed in on the tick of his jaw, the curl of his hair, and the tilt of his brow. “You think destroying something means you have to use violence and your fists or something equally as stupid as that, but you want the same thing I do, which is to get rid of the things that are bad for us. We just go about it in different ways.”

_ Men and Women.  _

She shrugs, softly. “You want Donald Latimer and everyone who thinks like him, and acts like him, to suddenly fall off the face of the planet. You want them gone.”

That nod again. 

Gwen breathes slowly. “Instead of destroying them….you could always try to save them first.” 

His eyes slowly draw a path to where she’s sitting beside him, still as can be, as if he’s a frightened child and she’s the weary stranger he should be staying away from.

“I’m not proud of it.” He finally breathes, voice low, tongue heavy. 

She nods because she isn’t proud of all the things knocking around in her head either.

“Sometimes…” She begins, not even sure why.  _ Comfort.  _ “When we find a victim...I think they’re sleeping.” She knows why she said it. It’s another secret in her box. They’ve all got them, things they’d rather keep in a box under lock and key, but sometimes you share because the box can start to feel a little too heavy, and sometimes, the fear of losing that key and never being able to access your own truths again is a far more scarier notion than just sharing them with someone in the first place. 

“Gwen--” 

“I know they’re not. I know they’re dead, but sometimes it’s just nice to think...when they’re lying there like that, all broken and quiet, it’s nice to think they’re just sleeping and that they’ll wake up any second.” The thought rattles her but she shakes her head to clear the sudden fog. “I’m not even sure why I told you that. I’ve never actually said that out loud to anyone.” 

The car is suddenly bathed in silence once again, and Gwen notices that it doesn’t feel stifling. It feels good. He asked what he needed to and she said what she wanted to.

“I need help.” 

Gwen shifts slightly to look at him. He’d mumbled the words but she still heard them. And before she can ask what he means, he shifts in his chair, too, blue eyes startlingly bright in the darkness of the night. 

“I need help savin’ them.”

She doesn’t nod or agree or even give him a sign that she even acknowledged what he said. Gwen simply stares at him, unblinking. He’s saying a million things with those eyes. 

_ Be my partner. Stay. Help me. Let’s save them all together. _

And because she knew, she knew from the moment he opened his mouth and asked her how not to become a monster, she knew that when he asked her to help him save them, he was really asking her to help him save himself. 

_ Be my partner.  _

_ Stay.  _

He’s prideful and yet he told her something he’s ashamed of. She’s quiet and yet she told him something she’s never voiced to anyone before.

He trusts her, or at least some part of her. It had only been a few months, and he was already giving her more than he gave his last partner and the partner before that. 

_ He trusts you. He knocked down one of his walls for you. You walked right through it, and because some part of him makes you want to trust him too, you started pecking at some of your own bricks for the sake of your partnership. For the sake of him.  _

Gwen knew her progress would be a little slower, that she would drag her feet before she sent herself into a full on sprint. But somehow she knew that he’d either be right behind her, ready with a steady hand on her back to push her forward again, or he’d be right in front, leading the way when she couldn’t see and eventually got lost in the fog, his voice quiet but clear, like a beacon rolling off the harsh tides and into his lighthouse. 

She’s always swam alone but looking over at him now, face open, expression earnest, she thinks she could use someone next to her, not to help her swim, but to be there when she eventually went under. Because he’d either keep her from drowning or he’d join her underneath the tide. She wouldn’t drown alone. 

And if given the option, she wouldn’t die alone.

As her eyes travel over his face, the harsh blue of his irises in the dark, the slope of his nose at this angle, an angle trusting and inviting, Gwen thinks for the first time... 

_ Well, what are partners for? _

**_Residence of Detective Blake Shelton_ **

**_72-12 Castleside Street, Glen Oaks, Queens, NY_ **

**_Saturday, December 10, 2001_ **

**_6:05 p.m._ **

**_Home Stereo: River -- Joni Mitchell_ **

He hates technology. 

If there’s one thing he could wipe off the face of the earth, besides rapists, it’d be technology and all its forms. Computers, cell phones, cameras, hell even the television. He’s never home long enough to even enjoy the damn thing but the girls do and run up the electric bill like he has money flowing out of his ass and he just hates it all. 

He hates it even more now that he’s aware of online chat rooms. He knew they existed, he’s just never really given them much thought before. His kids getting lured into one on the home computer gave him plenty to think about these days.

_ That  _ is what scares him the most. The thought of his job entering his home without him having brought it there intentionally. He does a very good job of keeping the two worlds separate. The gun and the badge are one way of life, his family and personal sphere are another. It’s harder to differentiate the two when they go out to the park, or the grocery store, or even for a walk with the dog because he’s so trained to be suspicious, to notice things out of the ordinary or better yet, things so ordinary that they're just plain  _ wrong.  _ And he knows he’s damn good at it, at observing, seeing,  _ noticing _ . He’s weary of strangers, of people standing too close to his children in lines, of grown men hanging around parks with no kids themselves, but he’s never had to be weary of his damn computer. 

Because there are people out there trying to talk to teens, kids, all minors, and they’re doing a lot more to them once they’ve established a line of communication and God forbid, any trust.

So yes, he hates technology and most likely always will. He can’t work any of it worth of shit, but he’s gonna learn, because Marty has her own email address, and Tess isn’t far behind her, and before he knows it, the twins will be all grown up, wanting to give him several heart attacks a day as they venture into the cyber world, and there’s nothing he can really do about that except make it safer for them when they’re there.

He’s in the middle of doing just that when Marty comes bouncing down the stairs, bookbag slung over her shoulder, blonde hair whipping behind her head in a high ponytail. 

“Okay, so I’m going over Jen’s now.” She tells him as she shoves several papers and a large homework binder into her bag on the kitchen table. 

Blake’s sitting at the computer desk, blinking several times to erase the annoying pixelated images of a child lock program he’s trying to install on the home server. He checks his watch as he swivels around in the chair to look over at his thirteen year old.

“Now?” 

Marty nods. “Yeah, I have a history test.” 

“It’s next Tuesday.” He tells her, turning back around to see the progress bar of the app installer. 

“Yeah.” Marty agrees, voice dropping for a second. 

“She can come over here.” Blake tells her.

Marty huffs and turns to glare at the back of his head. “But she’s an only child. It’s so much quieter at her place.” 

Blake rubs at his temple as he moves to face her again. Just then, Tess comes flying down the stairs holding Richie. They’re both yelling something unintelligible, dressed in mismatched clothing and some kind of towel design that’s supposed to resemble superheroes, and as if proving her point, Marty clears her throat pointedly at him. 

Blake sighs and clicks the pen he’s holding several times as a stalling tactic before finally saying, “Over at her mom’s or her dad’s?” 

“Well...why?” 

Blake stands up and walks the five feet over to his oldest. “Why do I wanna know who’s gonna be watchin’ my kid?” 

Marty physically pales but doesn’t take a step back. He doesn’t hate the reaction he invokes in his kids because while he intimidates them, maybe even scares them sometimes, they don’t see him as a literal threat, and therefore never shy away from his presence or his touch. 

“But I don’t understand. How do you know all this?” Marty asks in a slightly accusing tone. “How do you know I have a history test next Tuesday?” 

It’s not often that he gets caught off guard or even worse, when his children are the ones to do it, but Blake takes a deep breath and tries to find the right words to say. It’s a futile attempt because Marty is smart, and quick, and she catches on before he ever really wants her to. 

“Have you been reading my e-mails?” The question is asked loudly and he cringes because he knows the meltdown that’s coming next. 

“Well--” 

“You have, haven’t you?” She storms past him to the computer desk, wanting to see the transgression for herself. 

Blake turns around, fumbling with the words inside of his head that he wants to use to placate her. “I just wanted to find out if someone was sendin’ you things you shouldn’t be lookin’ at.” 

“Of course they do! I get at least ten junk e-mails a day and I delete them all, Dad! What else have you gone through?” 

“Look, I know you think I’m paranoid…” 

“Hello!” 

“Marty, let’s just talk about this. You can tell me anythin’--” 

“This is going real well. Why would I talk to you when you can just read my journal too? You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

“No!” He says frustrated before he realizes what she’s admitted. “You have a journal?” 

Marty shakes her head in disbelief. He can see the sting of hurt in her eyes, the flush of anger in her cheeks. She looks like Kaynette when he first told her that he didn’t want kids, right after she’d just told him that they were pregnant with Marty.

“Unbelievable!” His daughter screams as she turns away from him and runs back up the stairs. He hears the door slam loudly to her room, and then the tale-tell signs of his own bedroom door opening. 

Kay is heading down the steps and over to him with a wild and confused look in her eyes. “What was all that about?” 

He plants his hands low on his hips and shakes his head. He opens his mouth to respond but the phone rings. Blake answers it roughly. 

“Hey, sorry, it’s Gwen. Didn’t know it was a bad time…” 

He pinches the bridge of his nose and feels the tension in his shoulders ease at the sound of her voice. “It’s not. What’s up?”

“We got a tip on Seth Latimer, Donald’s son.” 

“You at the precinct?” 

He can feel her nodding. “I’ll wait for you and we’ll drive over together.” She says.

“Be there in twenty.” 

He hangs up and ducks past Tess and Richie as he grabs for his coat and keys. 

“You’re going into work?” Kay asks, folding her arms over her chest. She looks cold to the touch and he’s thankful she’s not just feeling cold towards him. Sometimes she fights him on leaving after he’s already spent a full day at work but other times, like now, she accepts it with a spoonful of disappointment. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he’s always disappointed, that the job is disappointing, and maybe that’s why he eats so much damn sugar, because there isn’t enough sweetness in the world to combat the mouthfuls of shit he swallows on a day to day basis. 

“I’ll be back before ten. Gwen says it’s just a tip.” 

Kaynette nods. “Okay. Be safe.” 

“Always.” 

He pecks her on the mouth before he leaves and as he starts up his truck and backs out the drive, he knows it’s salt water that he tastes off her lips.

**_Girello Tavern_ ** ****

**_11 Varick St Tribeca, New York City, NY_ **

**_Thursday, December 24, 2001_ **

**_12:14 a.m._ **

**_Jukebox: Christmas Eve Can Kill You -- The Everly Brothers_ **

She hates music. 

That’s not true. 

Her first love will always be music. She used to think that she’d be in a big band one day, playing around the world with her brother and her friends. But then one of their friends had died, and they never recovered, and now the band is just something she looks back fondly on, wondering what if, but never, why not. 

So no, she doesn’t hate music. She loves it. But she hates it when it makes her hurt this bad, when it reminds her of times when she had felt so good. 

Like now. She’s never heard this song. She doesn’t listen to country save for the little her parents played around the house when she was a little girl. 

But this one...Nothing rings a bell, but everyone else around her seems to know it. Daly, Williams, Clarkson, Blake, even Levine, but she suspects that’s from his childhood, too. They’re all singing, laughing, drinking, and she’s sitting there with them but not present, listening to lyrics like…

_ I think of years ago and half remembered Christmas trees and faces that still warm me with their glow. _

She misses home. She misses being young. She misses breathing without it hurting. She misses when she didn’t know what a child looked like after the light had left its eyes. She misses knowing music and singing with her own friends. She just misses. And this song, when it says stuff like-- _ The cold and empty evening hangs around me like a ghost  _ and  _ The sound of one man walkin' through the snow can break your heart but stopping doesn't help, so on I'll go-- _ makes her want to eat her gun, and she’s not the kind of person that thinks such things. 

She’s sunshine, and warmth, and light, and smiles. She shakes the ground when she laughs. She has gold running through her veins, intermingling with her blood. There’s no room to be anything other than alive, because she’s at her best when she’s taking a full breath, when her heart is beating rapidly in her chest. 

The problem is the drink in her hand and the five she had before. But...the real problem will be the five she’ll have after. 

They’re still singing. 

Gwen’s eyes land on her team, but they’re all blurry, swaying too fast for her tired and sluggish eyes. So when she comes to terms with the fact that she can’t see any of them in any kind of real detail, she resigns herself to watching Blake, because he’s the only one sitting down. He’s singing, in a deep and attractive voice she’ll admit, but he’s not moving much.

He’s nursing a warm vodka and sprite and smiling for the first time in days. 

Gwen watches as his hand flexes around the sweating glass. The inside of his right hand is tattooed in faded black ink. She knows it’s a small marine corps emblem because she asked Adam about it once in casual conversation, considering the man had plenty on his body himself. 

But there’s also another tattoo around his left wrist that looks like barbed wire and lady bugs or deer tracks, she’s not sure. But she stares at it anyways, appreciating the way the tendons in his arms flex and shift beneath his skin with every movement of his shoulders and hands.

Gwen tries not to watch him. It’s not that she’s doing so inappropriately, it’s just that he’s her partner, and the time she does spend with him is solely focused on a case, a victim, or something else pertaining to work. She can never look at his profile in the car because they’re too busy looking out the windshield at their target. She can never stare at him across the desks because she’s too busy staring down at the mounds of paperwork they have to fill out and file before a deadline. She can’t look at him. There simply isn’t the time, nor the opportunity to, so she never does. 

But now...now this song is playing, it’s officially Christmas Eve, and Blake Shelton has small ears. They’re tiny for a man but somehow perfect on him. His hair is the color of luminous brown sand and midnight, and his blue eyes look like the ocean against the bar lights.

He sings,  _ I feel like I've been walking all my life,  _ and Gwen sets her forearms on the table and watches, leaning in and in until her back is a straight diagonal line poised over the table at an acute angle. He sings with the rest of them, one corner of his lip curving upward just slightly. 

Carson can’t sing for shit, but he’s having a good time, even trying his best to outdo Blake, the apparent country crooner, and it doesn’t take a person with observation skills to see that each of them has the presence and charisma of a natural born leader. And while Carson is great and Gwen respects him a whole bunch as her Captain, and he’s usually the one to gather them all together after a long and trying day, she can see that Blake could lead this team of misfits if he made up his mind to, and there’s something awfully appealing and equally respectable in that, too. 

She wishes she could sing with them right now. She wishes she’d bought that plane ticket back home to be with her family. She wants nothing more but this case is too important, not to mention the spike in sexual abuse around the holidays. She needs to be here more than she needs to be in California, and that’s the saddest truth of them all. 

Gwen’s never missed a Christmas with her family. The holidays have always been super important. She just couldn’t swing it this year. She’ll have to learn to forgive herself eventually. 

Besides, maybe her first Christmas in New York won’t be so bad. She has her health, her faith, and...and Blake’s here. And while she won’t exactly see him tomorrow or even later on this evening, she’ll have spent at least part of the holidays in his company. 

She thinks that’s the life of a partner. 

Gwen will have all his Eves but never his Days. Then again, the same could be said for him, too.

Gwen takes a sip of her drink and finally works up the nerve to order another one. 

It isn’t a lot, but she’s already found small gifts to be thankful for this year.

Like New York’s winter wonderland, and this song, and her co-workers, and the fact that she got to not only look at her partner but  _ see  _ him, too, all in one night. So it’s not Anaheim. It’s not her parents or her siblings, and it’s not music she knows, or people who will spend all day with her just because they can, because they want to. 

Sure, maybe she’s still contemplating eating her gun, but not because she’s unhappy, but because it’s Christmas Eve and she feels like she’s just walking outside in the cold, trying to find someplace to go, someplace to belong when the only place she ever did is miles and roads away. 

But she has a right to feel that way ‘cause like the song said…

_ Christmas Eve can kill you when you're trying to hitch a ride to anywhere. _ __

**_Heckscher Playground_ **

**_Central Park, E 65 St, New York, NY_ **

**_Saturday, April 3, 2002_ **

**_12:23 p.m._ **

**_Rosalie’s Stereo Radio: Beast of Burden -- The Rolling Stones_ **

“Marty.” 

His daughter ignores him again, but he can see that her interest is piqued by the way her breathing changes pattern and her fingers crinkle the edges of the page in the book she’s reading. 

He’s been trying to coax a response out of her ever since they left the house, after he’d already told her that she couldn’t go to some pool party a kid in her grade was throwing.  _ A boy’s pool party.  _

And now, playing good dad had turned him into an uncool dad and he was receiving a fourteen year old’s uncanny ability to ignore the shit out of him for the rest of the day as punishment. 

A beautiful day, he might add. A day where he’s finally off of work. A day where he can spend all day at the park with his kids and wife and not have to worry about the job. A day where the birds are chirping, his kids are playing, and Kaynette is next to him, sprawled out on the blanket in nothing but blue jean shorts and one of his plaid button downs tied at the waist. His wife is reading her own book, and just like Marty, she’s ignoring him, but unlike Marty, she’s happy with him, so much so that he’s planted his bare feet in her lap and she’s lazily stroking a manicured finger down one of his toes and over his ankle without prompting. Her head is propped up on the picnic basket and he can see a small smile playing at her cherry lips. It isn’t quite the same shade as Gwen’s lipstick, but it reminds him of the detective, nonetheless. He wonders what Stefani is doing now, and hopes that whatever it is, is making her feel just as good as he does right now.

Because it does feel good. The sun, Kay’s hands, the music, the sounds of the twins, Vivian and Richie, playing in the sandbox next to them. All that’s missing is Tess, their second oldest. She’s down the hill playing a game of soccer with some of her friends from school, but Blake can still see the field from where they’re sprawled, and Tess can always see them herself, she need only look over and they’d be there. 

Blake sighs and leans back, knowing his head will be pillowed by his daughter’s back. He knows he’s in the doghouse with her, but Marty could never stay mad at him for too long, and her not complaining about the added weight of him on her already sweaty and too warm body, only further proved that she was already coming around to liking him again. 

“Marty.” 

“What Dad?” She snaps finally, whipping her head over her shoulder to look down at him. It’s an uncomfortable position, so she doesn’t look long. 

He smiles, though. That brief glimpse of his daughter will always take his breath away. All of his kids have that ability to stun him. It wasn’t like when he looked at Kaynette. Of course, his wife is beautiful. He has a thing for blondes, and Kay’s strawberry platinum locks and stunning blue-grey eyes have always done him in, but his kids are something else. 

Especially Marty. She’s their first born, their first everything when it comes to having and raising kids, and the moment he looked at her in that hospital after seventeen hours of waiting for her to come into the world, Blake’s breath had never fully returned back to him since. 

Marty is all long golden hair and teal blue eyes. She looks more like Kay in the face than him but she’s got his disposition. They’re both mild tempered, funny and light-hearted, both passionate around other people but usually quiet when left alone. Marty is like the sun. She’s a good thing, a positive force that touches your life, leaves you wanting more. It still trips him up everyday that he had a hand in making something so beautiful. 

He realizes he’s aggravated her and hasn’t said anything since.

“Whatcha readin’?” He asks. 

Marty sighs. “Jane Eyre.”

His mind blanks because he was never much of a reader. Marty gets that one from her mother. 

“Jane who?” 

Her breath is audibly heavy now, and before he can backtrack and leave her alone to her reading, she twists around onto her back, throttling his head a little until he picks it up, straining his neck to look at her. She pointedly moves higher up on the blanket as she sits up but allows his head to rest again on her bony legs.

“You’ve never heard of Jane Eyre?” The question is laced with so much annoyance that he wonders how she hasn’t disowned him yet. 

Blake shakes his head, hoping she won’t get anymore offended than she already is. 

“She was an orphan.” Marty responds and he gets the strange feeling that sometimes she wishes she was one after she said it. That makes him smile. 

“Was she a real person?” 

That earns him an eye roll. “No. Fictional.” 

“Ah, I see.” He doesn’t. In fact he’s not sure what to see or where the conversation is heading. 

“Jane Eyre is a love story, Dad.” 

He hums, and it’s apparently an appropriate response because it encourages Marty to continue. 

“She falls in love with the much older Mr. Rochester.” 

He doesn’t like the sound of  _ “much older”  _ but if he said something about it, Marty would go right back to wanting to throw him off a fucking cliff so he stays silent, only using his bright eyes to urge her to say more. 

“But Jane’s this plain girl that’s had a hard life. She thinks differently than most people. I feel like I’m her sometimes.”

That prompts him to speak up. “What do ya mean?” 

Marty flicks a long strand of gold behind her ear and clears her throat. The sight makes him think of Stefani at her desk, moving that particular strand of hair, and glancing up at him expectantly when he asks her a question about a suspect, liking the way she clears her throat before speaking because she’s insecure deep down even though she shouldn’t be. Gwen is good. She’s kindness, and light, and….

_Sunshine, he thinks. Gwen and Marty_ _both._

“Well, there’s a part of the book where Jane is saying to Mr. Rochester that she thinks that he thinks that she’s like a machine without feelings. That because she’s poor, and plain, and little that she basically doesn’t have a soul. That she’s heartless. She’s like yelling at him that he’s wrong. But she’s really yelling at the world for getting it wrong. You know? Because she’s always been full of heart, it’s just that no one’s looked long enough or hard enough to see it.” 

There’s something that he nor Kaynette passed along to their daughter, and this is it. Her ability to see beyond what is written on paper or flashed across someone’s face. He reads perps like a book all day long, but given half the chance or opportunity, Marty would not only read them, but she’d find some way to understand them, and that’s what scared him the most. It’s why he did his damndest to protect her and her siblings. 

His eyes glance over and down the hill to Tess before he finds the words to respond back to his awaiting daughter. 

“You think you’re like Jane?” 

Marty nods. “Not because I’m plain or anything, but because I feel like I get overlooked sometimes.” 

_ She’s fourteen. Where does she get this stuff? _

“Who overlooks you?” There’s only the slightest bit of defensiveness in his voice when he asks. 

“Not like that, Dad. I mean...the kids at school so much as hear my name and they think right away, ‘Oh the smarty pants, teacher’s pet, goody two shoes,’ I think they think I’m this machine that happens to be pretty. But I feel. I feel a lot. I’m almost a woman.” 

He casts a glance over to his wife to see Kay’s eyes shining with mirth. She refrains from laughing, and gives him a wink as he returns his attention back to his daughter. 

“Why do you care what the kids at school think?” 

Marty rolls her eyes at him again. “I’m fourteen, Dad. Of course I care what the kids at school think about me.”

“I thought ya just said you were almost a woman?” 

Kay squeezes the heel of his foot in warning and his leg flinches.

“Okay, so do you think that me and your Mom feel like you’re a machine?” 

“No but you two have the emotional capacity of a snail put together so it’s not a lot to go on or take too seriously.” 

He isn’t sure if he should be offended or not. The conversation is slowly getting away from him. “So what you’re saying is...people think you're pretty, smart, and good. I don’t see a problem with that.” 

“Yeah but there’s more to me than that. It’s not just black and white. I’m a lot of colors, Dad...and I know the world isn’t seeing my rainbow when they look at me.” 

Her eyes squint just slightly, just enough for her to look exactly like her mother then, and he grins. “You know what you are to me? You’re not a machine, or a rainbow, or even a saint. You’re a ray of sunshine in my world. Golden, bright, warm. You’ve got it, kid. You light my world up, and anyone who doesn’t see that, well they must be blind, Marty.” 

Her smile is infectious, and Blake puts one paw out of the dog house. 

“You’re not always the smoothest talker, Dad, but you have your moments...Thanks.” 

The dog house is just a blur in his peripheral vision now, and he squeezes her ankle softly and closes his eyes, thankful. “You should try readin’ out loud sometimes.” 

It’s as much as an invitation that she’s ever gonna get and Marty picks up her book eagerly, realizing it. Her words blur together after a while. Her voice soft and quiet as she reads and reads and reads. He’s sated. Warm. Happy. He chances one last look over the hill to Tess, then to the twins, before he closes his eyes for good and lets himself drift off for a little bit. 

The last thing he feels is a squeeze to the heel of his foot, and then he’s out.

**_16th Precinct_ **

**_204 West 119th Street, Manhattan, NY_ **

**_Monday, April 16, 2002_ **

**_7:23 p.m._ **

**_Detective Adam Levine’s Desk Radio: Miss You -- The Rolling Stones_ **

“Gwen.” 

She looks up at her partner through blurry eyes. 

Blake slides his mug of coffee across his desk and over the threshold that meets her own. 

“Drink it.” 

“Is it that obvious?” She asks, not even rejecting the offered caffeine.

He shrugs, eyes going back to the papers Daly handed out to them when they first arrived at the precinct.

Gwen sighs and digs the heel of her hand into the crevices of her sunken eyes. She fights back a yawn as she takes a tentative sip of his coffee. She tries not to grimace at the lack of warmth and mouthful of sugar. Only he would keep a cold cup of grounds on his desk and not think to throw it out or get a fresh brew. 

“You’re the only one who likes that cinnamon creamer in the fridge.” She tells him, just because it’s god awful and he should know that his preferences are disgusting. 

Blake only laughs quietly at her, eyes crinkling in the corners handsomely. She tries not to let her stare linger too long, but something about the sight before her has her wanting to capture the moment with a picture or a drawing. It’s not often that his face is so completely unguarded. For someone who loves sugar as much as he does, he should look less….agreeable. 

The doors to the squardroom open, snapping her focus from her partner and onto Detective Pharrell Williams. 

The man’s stride into the room is purposeful and abrupt. He’s an hour late to work than the rest of them. Gwen’s eyes stray to the spot of spit-up on his jacket and instantly knows why. His partner, Detective Adam Levine, is already at their desks, filling out the same mandatory paperwork her and Blake and the rest of the SVU team had been assigned. 

“Nice of you to join us, slacker.” Adam quips as he bites the end of his pen and leans back in his chair at a dangerous angle. 

Pharrell shrugs his coat off, ignoring the younger man knowingly. He heads for the pot of coffee in the corner and Gwen almost calls out to him to make her a new cup as well but something still lingering in Blake’s smile stops her. 

“Williams. You’re late, and you have a ton of this packet to fill out. Get to it. I need you and Levine parked outside Latimer’s son’s residence in case he ever decides to come home.” Daly bellows as he drops the insurance packet on the detective’s desk. 

“What’s that?” Pharell asks, taking a seat. 

“Some insurance thing the department conjured up to justify giving us therapy sessions every other month.” Adam helpfully provides, still leaning too far back in his chair. 

Pharrell grimaces, clearly repulsed by the idea, and Gwen can tell that it’s the exact same face she made after taking a sip of Blake’s coffee. 

“Don’t you see what they’re doing?” He complains. 

“Yeah, they’re looking out for you, Williams--” One of the other detectives, Kelly Clarkson, starts to tease. “Psychiatric coverage increased to 80%.” 

“Relax, it’s just a medical form.” Blake chimes in, already bored with the theatrics. Gwen envies the way he tries to dismiss the conversation without even glancing up from his papers. 

“Yeah, well, as soon as they find out your mother had diabetes or that your father had male pattern baldness--sorry chief--they’ll have your entire genealogical and not to mention genetic fingerprint.” 

The Captain tries not to look offended by his detective's gripe and instead takes Adam’s completed form when it’s held out to him. 

“They’ll know when you’re gonna die, how it’s going to occur, and what song you want sung at your funeral.” Pharrell finishes, much to Kelly’s chagrin. 

“Uh, there’s two r’s in “hemorrhoids” Levine.” Carson says, squinting down at the misspelled word on the paper.

Blake’s head snaps up and over to the younger man, expression somehow in disbelief and disgust at the same time. It amuses Gwen to no end and she refrains from laughing out loud. 

To his credit, Adam looks equally incredulous as he leans back in his chair again and throws his hands up in the air. “I’m a desk jockey, what do you want from me?” 

Gwen’s eyes burn holes into her insurance form, the laughter threatening to bubble over and erupt from her chest and throat at any moment like a damn volcano. Adam stretches up the next second with his coffee mug in hand, and swipes Blake’s cold cup off of her own desk, knowing damn well about her preferences for hot coffee because they’re the same as his. She goes to thank him for getting her another cup when he suddenly leans over her shoulder to get a better look at her papers. 

“See, she’s got the right idea.” Adam points out. “Leave the sexual history side blank. That’ll mess them up.”

She misses the hard look Blake sends Adam’s way. 

“Let’s keep our eyes on our own papers, huh?” Blake warns. 

Gwen knows he’s trying to protect her but the rest of them don’t know, and that thought alone allows her to be on the receiving end of any teasing without having to look over her shoulder twice. 

But she appreciates it nonetheless and offers him a reassuring smile as Levine backs off and heads over to his mail locker. Blake doesn’t look at her, instead, his eyes draw a path from Adam to Carson and the next thing she hears is their Captain asking about the Latimer case. 

And just like that, they dive right back into another day at the office.

**_16th Precinct_ **

**_204 West 119th Street, Manhattan, NY_ **

**_Tuesday, June 2, 2002_ **

**_6:15 a.m._ **

**_Gwen’s Desk Radio: This Feeling -- Alabama Shakes_ **

They don’t work another case involving a child victim for some time after Matthew Henly.

He’s grateful. Immensely relieved. Pleasantly surprised at their luck, because they hadn’t been lucky with little Matthew.

The thing about circles is that they’re an endless cycle. You can start and stop at any point around the ring, but at any moment, you can find yourself right back where you began, and so on. So just because they busted one phedophilia ring six months ago, doesn’t mean there aren’t twenty already in its place. So boys and girls like Matthew Henly will always be targets, always be some point on the circle that they get to but can’t save, and in some months from now, maybe even some years, they’ll do this all over again, and it will still feel the same, his heart will break once more, his faith will be that much more shattered, and his anger will boil over until Gwen makes him realize that the anger is just a cover, a way to hide the waves of crushing guilt he still feels on the job. 

His unrealistic expectation that he can save everyone and everything is the problem. But then again, his partner has the same fantasies, the same naive dreams as him, and as far as he can tell, he’s in better company with Gwen Stefani than he’s ever been with anyone else close to this job. They can be naive together, just as long as they  _ try.  _

And by God does she try.

He thinks she might be trying a little too hard. She has this worn look in her eyes, and it never goes away. It reminds him of when he first started out. Carson compares those first few years at SVU to a candle. It starts with a spark of interest, slowly fades into a brightly lit flame remenscent of hope, crackles softly with quiet rage and distaste for the pollutant air of the city and the sight of a victim splayed behind a dumpster, before being swayed by a hollow breath of relief, and a resigned sigh to a bleak fate, and eventually ending on nothing but the remnants of a burn where the scent no longer lingers in the air and the warmth no longer permeates your lungs. It takes quite a while to really get there. Most of the detectives in the unit get traded out after two or three years, but he’s seeing Gwen’s flame sway just a little too early,  _ years  _ too early, and it nerves him. 

He can’t ask her about it. 

He just can’t. 

He can ask her if she needs more caffeine, or if she wants his hoodie out of his locker because the precinct is a damn near freeze box, or if she wants him to change the station on his desk radio from country to some station he never plays but will grow to like because she does. He can ask her if she’s ready for lunch, or if she wants him to type up a report so that she can get a couple hours of rest down in the crib, but he can’t ask her if she’s okay. 

He can only ask, “Are you ready?” And he can call her out on her bullshit when she lies and says she is, but he can’t grab her by the shoulders and make her look him in the eyes and tell him the truth to begin with. He can ask her where she’s going but he can’t ask her what she’s going to do or who she’s going to do it with when she gets there. He can ask her when she might think the light in her eyes will return, but he can’t ask her  _ how  _ it’s going to come back, he just has to wait and see when it does. He’s going to watch for it, because he can’t ask about it, but more importantly, he can’t put it back there himself, and maybe that’s what’s been eating at him all these months. 

Because they don’t get another case involving a dead child, but ever since Matthew Henly, something inside of Gwen’s heart, her soul even, something childlike and naive, has slowly started to fade with the dead boy they both know’s been wedged between them all these months. He’s the thing that goes unspoken in the air of the sudan when they sit next to each other on a stakeout, the cracked glass cup in the cabinet they don’t touch or use because it leaks and makes a mess and they’re certainly too tired to clean up yet another thing in their lives. Matthew Henly is the little angel slowly bringing out their inner demons, and it rattles the shit out of him. 

It’s the first case they’ve really been affected by, but the thing that pisses him off more is that it won’t be the last case to ever taint them. There will be more down the line. More kids, more rape, more death, more hot and late nights, more cold and early mornings, and he’ll have to keep his anger in check, have to shed his coat and give it to Gwen to cover her goosebumps, have to remember that if they don’t do this job, than no one will, at least not as good as them, and not with nearly as much heart.

So he has to find a way to ask her if she’s okay without ever asking her outright if she is. He has to remember that she doesn’t like cold coffee, and that some cases hit closer to home for her than they do for him, and thinks maybe he’ll ask her about her past sometime here in the near future because that tired look she has makes him want to jump off a cliff and if he asks her about that, then he’s really asking her if she’s okay, and if she’s okay, she’ll stay. If she stays, the light might come back, and he might have a partner for the next couple of years. 

And he’s gonna need one. He’s gonna need her-- _ Gwen _ \--when the next Matthew Henly drops into his lap, or when the next point on the circle leads them to a dark place they’ve both been to before. He’s going to need her. He just doesn’t know if she’s going to need him back.

He’s not used to not being needed. His whole family needs him. His wife, his kids, his parents, his siblings. His coworkers. Gwen is one of his coworkers, but she’s more than that. She’s his partner. Shouldn’t she need him the most? And wasn’t he an asshole for even thinking she did in the first place? Gwen is capable of taking care of herself. He’s not her father, or her husband, or even her brother. He’s the guy she sees every morning standing over a victim, the guy who sits across from her at their desks, the guy who sits in the driver’s seat next to her, the guy who she associates death and crime and rape with. He’s work. He’s a fool to think that he’d be anything else. She could do without him. 

There will always be another job out there, another partner to replace him with, another false sense of security to tolerate. She can live without him. She doesn’t need him. Even now. When her radio is still playing from the night before because she stayed at the precinct and slept in the crib. She doesn’t need him to turn it off, probably doesn’t want him touching any of her stuff. 

She doesn’t need him to make her a cup of coffee either. He doesn’t need to go down stairs and wake her up because they have another victim. She doesn’t need him. She’ll be up at the squadroom any moment now, working her way over to the coffee machine, over to her desk to switch the radio station, and he’ll just sit there and watch her, useless, not being needed, probably not being wanted either, at least not so early, not when she just woke up, not when Adam drank the last of her favorite creamer this morning and she’ll have to either drink the dark roast black or use his cinnamon stuff that she hates so much.

The fact that she has to even depend on something from him that she absolutely abhors makes his stomach turn. 

_ It’s just fucking coffee creamer. It’s not a big deal.  _

He doesn’t know why he cares so much or why it’s affected him like it has. Maybe because it boils down to that one thing constantly pressing against the back of his head like a deadly tumor. 

_ She’s still here.  _

Even despite the worn look in her eyes and the lack of creamer and all his annoying facets and every victim they find. 

Gwen is still his partner this morning and would most likely be later on tonight. And he doesn’t want that to change. He’s getting used to her. He likes her. He can even admit it...he cares about her. Not in any way that could compromise their positions or jobs. It’s not like that. He sees that he can depend on her. That the feeling is mutual. He sees that he can do some good to her and knows she’s done every bit of good by him. But despite all that, Blake knows he can go out into the field and return home with all his pieces, knows that she goes home every night with all of hers.

She’s his blindspot. 

She’s the hands on his clock. She’s got his three, his six, and his nine. Left, right, back. If need be, she’ll step in front, protect his twelve, and he won’t hesitate to do the same thing. He cares.

So he has to ask her if she’s okay. If she’s ready. If the light will slowly creep back into her eyes so she can lead them through the dark. She may not need him, may not want him, but she has to depend on him for the same things that he expects of her. 

So he switches off her radio, and fills a clean mug with coffee and sugar, forgoing the cinnamon in hopes that might earn him some extra points for the day, and travels down to the crib. He opens the door quietly, and treads carefully inside, eyes moving between the rows of bunk beds until he spots her lying in the far corner on a bottom bunk.

Her body lies heavily on the mattress, sinking the soft pad in the shape of her curves. She’s wearing what she had on last night: white fitted shirt, black slacks, dark heel-toed boots still laced on her feet.

He thinks about what he knows of her past, and hopes she doesn’t do this regularly. Maybe she was too tired to take them off.  _ Please let it be the exhaustion for once _ , he thinks. 

Blake inches closer, gripping the mug in his hand tighter. 

Her hair is short. He’s never really noticed before, but it’s at a perfect length to curl at the ends and lightly touch the tops of her shoulders. It’s blonde. The shade reminds him of his wife. But Gwen’s hair looks softer, blonder, maybe even feels thicker than Kaynette’s. There’s something so put together about Gwen. When she wakes, there’s a tension in her brow that never really goes away, even when she laughs or smiles. But now, her features are slack, peaceful, perfect. She looks like nothing can touch her like this, and when he sits on the edge of the mattress beside her, he knows nothing ever should, so he never does. 

“Gwen.” 

Her name is whispered. It’s not like him to be this gentle with someone. Not even with his kids. Someone told him a long time ago, when he and Kay were pregnant with Marty, that babies were resilient, toddlers and kids even more so. He ran with it. And then he ran right into Gwen years later and now apparently, he’s gentle. 

She doesn’t stir. Her breath is shallow. He repeats her name, a little louder this time, no less demure.

There. A twitch in her cheek. He smiles because it reminds him of Richie. His son wakes up much the same way. A twitch, then a wince in the eyes, then an uplift in one of the corners of his mouth. His eyes slowly open, a muddy green adjusting to the light. 

Gwen’s eyes are some shade between red and brown and they’ll always make him think of fall, and when she looks at him, he has to ignore the lack of shine that was in them when she first transferred almost a year ago. 

“We got another vic.” He tells her quietly. 

And just like clockwork, her brow creases, her body is no longer pliant but rigid, and he sees her mind adjusting to her life. The job, another rape, another day with him stuck in a car and at a desk. 

Why does he never ask her what she does or who she goes home too after a long day? Maybe the same reason he never asks her if she’s okay. Maybe because he already knows the answer. Maybe because she didn’t go home last night, and now here is, here they both are, in the crib, staring at each other but not really  _ seeing  _ anything, the morning light shining in through the windows, illuminating their purpose, trying like hell to push away their shadows.

He doesn’t ask and she doesn’t offer anything. Some part of him thinks maybe she doesn’t want to make him feel guilty about having a family, a life outside of this bubble they find themselves in, because when the bubble pops, it looks like she’s all alone, and he doesn’t need to feel bad about that. 

Gwen’s tired eyes stray to the cup of coffee in his hand, and he looks down at the scalding liquid. “Adam drank the rest of that creamer ya like. I put a couple of sugar packets in but that’s it.” 

She nods, taking the offered beverage. “Thanks. What time is it?” 

He looks down at his father’s watch. “Almost six-thirty.” 

He expects her to groan, to grimace, maybe even sigh a little, but she doesn’t do any of those things and he gets the feeling that she’s showing less of herself whenever he’s around. Or maybe she doesn’t want to show anything when he’s the  _ only  _ one around. It makes sense. They’ve never been alone like this before. 

Sure, there were the stakeouts in the car, the late nights filling out paperwork or going over evidence, but that was all work. Every breath, every look, every word, they all had the job covered in them.

This. 

This is hot coffee as an apology that he can’t do any better. This is a gentle reminder that he can be, that he’s not all grumpy mumblings and hard looks, that sometimes, he can be better, he can be quiet, and he can be gentle, and it doesn’t mean anything other than it’s inside of him, and he’s capable of it. This is unguarded and vulnerable Gwen, at least for a few moments, and it’s the most he’s seen of her that is downright human and raw. This is an early morning. He’s waking her up, she’s letting him, and it’s a rare moment where the job is still between them but it’s made room for something else in their partnership. 

It’s familiarity. 

She’s familiar to him now. Eight months. He’s familiar with her reactions to morning coffee and a reminder that another case, another victim, allows them to have a job in the first place. He’s familiar with that tension in her brow, that dim look in her eyes, the way she’s going to expect him to leave in a couple of minutes so that she can ready herself without his demanding gaze.

He’s familiar to her, too. He has to be or else she wouldn’t have let herself depend on him for these brief and quiet moments. She’s familiar with her trust in him, with her faith. She knows he’ll always find her when they get that call. She trusts he won’t ask if she’s okay but instead, make sure she’s ready to leave, to work, to agonize over another victim. She trusts that he’ll know when to leave her be, and when to stay still. 

She has faith that with this familiarity, he still won’t overstep. And he doesn’t want to disappoint her because she’s still his partner this morning, and he wants her to still be later on this evening. 

He stands up with an ease he doesn’t feel and gives her a time limit on her morning routine, not that he even knows if she has one. 

He doesn’t bother to shut the door quietly as he leaves, and in fact, lets it bang close with a force he now feels as he ascends the steps once again. Maybe show and tell is over. He knows she won’t read into it, because he’s shown her how he can be, but they never promised to comprise who they really are. 

Cause at the end of the day, he’s son-of-a-bitch who will do anything to keep her there, and she’s his partner who doesn’t need or want him but is still willing to stay either way.

They don’t work another case involving a child victim for some time after Matthew Henly, but they follow that damn circle around.

He hopes they don’t hit a point they can’t come back from.

He thinks they’re slowly getting there anyways.

**_Girello Tavern_ **

**_11 Varick St Tribeca, New York City, NY_ **

**_Friday, June 18, 2002_ **

**_12:03 a.m._ **

**_Jukebox: Cold -- Chris Stapleton_ **

She’s never actually seen his kids in person. 

There’s a photo on his desk, stuck in the corner between his computer and a Best Dad mug he never drinks out of. It all collects dust at the end of the day but the picture stays untouched, holding a memory she’s sure is very lovely for him. 

There’s some kind of ocean in the background of it and Blake is standing in the middle with his arms full of the twins. They were only babies then and she knows the picture has to be at least three years old. His wife, Kaynette, is standing next to him, holding one of the older girls, her hand softly curled around the shoulder of their oldest daughter. 

They’re all blonde, except for Blake and his youngest girl, Vivian. They’re all beautiful, and Gwen thinks how lucky he is. Because even though she’s never met them, Gwen can  _ see  _ his life. She can see Tess in her blue softball Jersey, and Kaynette cheering from the bleachers, and Richie and Vivian playing in the dugout, and Marty with her feet slung over the arm of a chair, talking on the phone to her friends. But if nothing else, she can see Blake arriving just a little late to the game, work clothes still stuck to his sweaty skin, smile wide and handsome as he joins his wife in the stands, eyes immediately searching for his daughter out in the field before finding the rest of his brood. 

It isn’t hard to see that picture and then look at the one before her right now. Blake is easy to imagine as a father, and even easier to look at underneath the dim lights of this bar. 

He’s leaning against a dingy wall across from her, waiting for the restrooms, looking tired and too exhausted to even stand straight. He’s frowning and mussed, and just turned thirty-two.

It’s the first birthday of his that she gets to experience and she has this gnawing feeling in her gut that it won’t be the last, that she’ll be around for years to tell him without really telling him that she’s glad he was born, glad that he made it this far to meet her, and know her, and continue to sit across from her day in and day out. She’ll never give him a present, none other than the job, the commitment, the trust, and the respect. She thinks it’s all he really expects of her anyways. 

He has a family to shower him with love and affection. He’s in good hands. He doesn’t need anything else from her than what she’s already providing, so Gwen drinks the rest of her water and takes her eyes off of her partner for the rest of the night. 

They only return to his large and imposing figure when they’re outside walking to their respective cars and Gwen heads for the street, hoping there will be one or two taxis passing by. A wide hand wraps around her arm before she can reach the sidewalk, tugging her elbow back and her whole body into the hard planes of his chest.

She startles for a moment, having been thrown off her equilibrium. The air is muggy and hot and smells of sewer water but when she bumps into him, the detective breathes in the lingering scent of vodka and sprite and Blake’s cologne.

“Where are you going?” He asks, voice low and rough, but tired and surprisingly clear. He’s had more to drink than her but he weighs more, can hold more, and Gwen doesn’t doubt for a second that he’d be fine to drive himself home. 

“I came with Kelly but she left a while ago.”

His eyes shrink and they pierce through the darkness. Sober Blake is very careful, very intentional, but tipsy Blake, drunk Blake, he’s carefully unintentional and it’s something she never would have guessed but is pleased to learn all the same. 

“I’ll take you home.” 

She doesn’t even pretend to want to object. She hates public transportation, and it’s late, she’s tired, and he has a day off tomorrow for his birthday. 

_ Tomorrow is today. _

Today will be yesterday before she knows it and she’ll have spent it at work, his desk empty, her mug full, and their caseload tiresome.

Just like him. 

He’s too tired and just drunk enough to open her door for her as they near his truck.

She bites her tongue and slips inside without a remark. 

The drive is quiet. He doesn’t turn the radio on, but Gwen still hears the song playing in the bar from earlier. She doesn’t ask him how he came to be a father of four and a husband to one in the silent spaces between them. Instead, she looks out the window and imagines what her life would have looked like if she had stayed in California. But as always, when she tries to escape New York, he’s like the lure of the city and the bright lights, leading her on, leading her back, trapping her in. He turns to look at her at a red light and his eyes flash a brilliant blue. 

Conversations of monsters and saving come back to her in a heartbeat and she wills the feeling of desperation to go away. Maybe if she opened a window. 

“Time...time needs to slow down.” 

It’s not what she expected him to say. But because she’s starting to wear and tare, because the job is starting to hurt and make her ache, because he has kids and a wife, because she’s alone, because it’s dark and late--incredibly early--because he’s familiar to her and she’ll always remember Matthew Henly, Gwen listens to him say,  _ time needs to slow down, _ but hears instead,  _ we first met in the squadroom, I wasn’t sure about you, you weren’t sure about me, and then we sat next to each other for close to a year, thinking of each other in the confines of our homes maybe once a week, then everyday, to suddenly I’m waking up every morning with the weight of you inside of my chest and I’m wondering if you feel the same way about me. _

Time is going by way too quickly and yet it’s dragging on incredibly slow because it takes years to admit something like that. It takes years to really know someone, to be their friend, to be their partner. It takes years but they only had a couple of months. 

And she does care about him. Sometimes she hates to admit it to herself but without her brothers and her father, without her family back home, Blake is really the only other person she can depend on. She cares if he shows up to work in the morning. She cares if a case hits too close to home for him. She cares about him getting enough sleep. She cares about his rage and his hesitancy about becoming like the very people he works so hard to put away. She cares about the fact that he doesn’t wear ties. She cares about his sugar intake because if he catches diabetes then she’ll have to kick his ass. She cares about his family, cares about him being a good husband and a great dad. She cares about his soul, so she cares about him missing church, even if that means she has to, just to avoid that. 

She cares about being there for his birthdays.

She cares that he feels that time is going by way too quickly for him.

She cares that he cares about her. 

She should care more about the fact that caring means she’s responsible for them now. 

When the job gets too hard, when she feels like throwing up and quitting, when she stands over a dead child’s body and wishes death was just sleep, something you could wake up from and never revisit again, Gwen has to think about how much she cares, how she can’t just walk away, because walking away from the job, from the victims, is the same thing as walking away from him. 

It should have taken her years to get to this place. It should have taken them longer to solidify their partnership. Time should have taken its time. 

She thinks if the clock continues to tick on this way, time will surely kill the both of them and everything they’ve worked so hard for. 

She thinks it may have already as she stares into his eyes.

She forces herself to look out the window again and wonders when she forgot to even notice the seconds before him and after him. 

__

**_16th Precinct_ **

**_204 West 119th Street, Manhattan, NY_ **

**_Thursday, August 16, 2002_ **

**_8:45 a.m._ **

**_Detective Adam Levine’s Desk Radio: I Can Feel a Hot One -- Manchester Orchestra_ **

You get into this job for one reason.

To help people. 

You want to do the impossible, even when the late nights catch up to you, even when the coffee turns you into a zombie instead of a machine, even when you catch the bad guy at the end of the day but he still makes his way underneath your skin, inside of the victim’s chest, their body, their soul. The impossible is only impossible when you haven’t tried. And once you try, you’re now responsible. Either way, win or lose, succeed or fail, you are responsible. 

You get into this job for one reason. They all do. To help. To save. To cling to hope that at the end of the day, humanity is still worth fighting for, still worth sacrificing for.

But you only get into sex crimes for a million and one reasons. Something had to have happened to bring you here, to convince you that you can save them all, that the impossible has happened and you have to somehow reconcile that fact with the one that drove you to the division in the first place. Somewhere along the way, sex messed you up. You saw something you shouldn’t have, felt something you weren’t meant to way too soon, been affected by something dark and disgusting and horrifying that should never have been that way to begin with, or maybe you were the product of that darkness, or knew someone that was, and that is something he ponders over everyday when he looks at her. 

_ Stefani _ .

_ Gwen Renée Stefani. _ His partner. 

His partner for over a year. 

She was a transfer, never worked a special case in her life, but she wasn’t  _ new.  _ You can tell when someone’s never been touched by tragedy before, never held hands with ugly or stared hate in the face. Adam is a prime example. He’s new. New to this world, new to death, new to disappointment. It’s why he struggles more than the rest of them. It’s why he’ll transfer out of here in two more years.

But Gwen isn’t new. He thinks the only time she’s ever been  _ new  _ to him is when he first met her. 

He remembers sitting exactly where he is now, in his chair, at his desk, legs sprawled out in front of him, hands clasped over the middle of his stomach. 

Detective Adam Levine was sitting at the desk several feet away from him, balling up blank, yellow, legal note pages in his hands and shooting them into the trash bin by his partner’s feet. Detective Pharrell Williams was filling out a report, pointedly ignoring the younger man’s attempt to break his earlier record of fifteen straight buckets. 

Blake stopped taking count after he reached twenty-three, and started up a conversation with Kelly Clarkson. The first grade detective normally ignored the rest of her unit but managed to indulge him as he asked her about Texas. It’s where she was born, where she transferred from a few months ago, and he was curious about the place that was home to the Dallas Cowboys and the live music capital of the world, respectively.

That’s when she walked in, carrying nothing but a box of her belongings and a designer black bag slung over her shoulder. 

She was all skin, even now, especially then, and yet, you wouldn’t know it. He could tell by the way she carried herself, by the way she wore those form-fitting slacks everyday, the way she stretched over her paperwork or in the passenger seat of the car like she doesn’t prefer to be  _ seen _ , only acknowledged, he could tell by the way she prefered her clothes just a little too tight, and yet entirely misleading because they were always somehow  _ loose  _ on her frame, that Gwen had created something so pure out of something so dark, something so incredibly unwanted. Even before the Captain had requested him in his office only a week after they’d officially been partners and told him. He knew. 

She hides herself. 

She hides a lot, in fact. She isn’t the most forthcoming person he’s ever met but then again, neither is he. And besides, it had still been new, this partnership they have. They were still adjusting to each other, still toeing lines, still trying to figure out if they liked their coffee the same way. God, they really don’t. They had even disagreed a lot in the beginning, until they realized they were saying the same thing just in different ways.

_ Men and women.  _

But they eventually got there. He swore it only took five months for him to understand that when she said jump and he said go, they were both asking for the other to  _ move. _ It only took five months, only five for him to notice when she needed caffeine and when she just needed a big cup of honey and green tea to settle her nerves. Only five for him to recognize when she was in a good mood that day because her blazer and slacks would be colored instead of black or grey. He understood when he looked across his desk and sometimes saw a faint glint in her eyes when she stared back. She was hungry in those moments. He knew because so was he. They had started to grow accustomed to each other. In tune. 

He thinks that it’s never been that easy in the past. 

His partners before found him harder to read, difficult to connect to. It had taken longer than five months to develop a routine, an understanding, a bond. And even then, he never considered his other partners as confidants. He never really trusted them like he needed to, like a detective ought to. 

But here she is.  _ Gwen. Detective Stefani. _

Even in all her hidden glory, he feels a kinship to her. He also thinks that only happens once in a lifetime. You meet your match, your partner, your one and true ally. They’re a  _ team _ . They’re in sync. They’re catching all the bad guys, solving every single case put across their desks, locking away every bastard that reminds them of why they decided to join the Special Victims Unit to begin with. They’re becoming heroes even though they don’t want to be. There’s talk of them as stars of the division, but all they care about is helping people. They’re  _ saving  _ them together. It’s a bright thought in a bleak world.

So what if he doesn’t talk about it with her? 

_ I know how you got here.  _

He’ll bring it up when it’s safe too, when a year turns into three or four, most likely.

_ I know how you got here but what happened to you? Are you okay?  _

He might never ask, and she might never willingly offer that information up either. That’s fine. 

_ For whatever it’s worth, it brought you here to me, okay or not. That’s the only reason I need. _


End file.
